


The Theory of Uncertainty

by Lyrid



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Circus Arc (Kuroshitsuji), Depression, Families of Choice, Gen, Grim Reapers, Multi, Screw Destiny, Suicide Attempt, Unlikely Friendships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-24 16:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17104526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrid/pseuds/Lyrid
Summary: Undertaker has grown weary of his endless existence spent indifferently collecting the souls of the dead. There doesn't seem to be anything interesting left in the world, until he meets a young fortune teller on his list who simply...doesn't die. AU, set in modern-day London. Deals with themes of suicide, depression, and grief.





	1. Vanish

**Author's Note:**

> So I've had this little story kicking around in my brain for some time, and finally decided to give it a start. If you want to share your thoughts or give me a nudge to keep going, please leave a review! I hope you enjoy!

_Every grave opens wide like a lover's arms, beckoning you to fall into its secure embrace. It looks so peaceful down there, right? So fall._ That was what the silver-haired figure thought as he observed the achingly familiar scene before him. He had never stood on this particular train trestle before, but he could tell it was long abandoned by the thick weeds crowding in between the rusted tracks. A relic of earlier times, when people thought the world could be tied together by rails like a parcel bound up in string. Now that dream was finished, as dead as the young woman in front of him was about to be. He checked his pocketwatch out of habit; he had been standing on this ruin for exactly twenty-three minutes, awaiting the arrival of the latest soul on his collection list. She had shown up at the ten-minute mark, wrapped in a thin black overcoat with a hood that buried a mass of bushy hair. It was nighttime; she must have walked here from her home, or perhaps her workplace, and she had spent the last thirteen minutes leaning over the rickety railing, staring down into darkness. The marsh far below them was hidden in shadow and mist, a gaping maw into which she would soon let herself drop.

Tapping long nails against his pocketwatch, he checked the time again. Three minutes until her time of death. He was relieved that this one wouldn't take long. Sometimes the jumpers took forever to actually do it, cringing before the empty abyss, sobbing, dialing phone numbers that never picked up. It could drag on for hours. But this girl had walked all the way out here in this kind of weather, so she must be fairly determined. He paced closer to her, staring down at her shrouded figure. She couldn't sense him, of course, but she shivered as another gust of wind rattled through her thin coat. He wondered if she'd been here before in happier days. Why had she chosen this broken trestle to be the place where she took her final leap?

The reaper stepped back as the girl edged toward the nearest column, mentally chiding himself for being drawn in. He had long ago lost interest in charting out these mortals' fleeting lives. It didn't matter why she'd come here or who she was. He didn't even recall her name, having glanced over his collection list a few minutes before her arrival to make sure nothing had changed. Nothing ever changed. She was going to die in a minute and then nothing that she was or did or thought would ever matter again. He already knew what he was going to write on his collection list after her head cracked open like an egg on the faraway ground; _Died of cranial trauma due to a fall. Additional remarks: None._

He watched passively as she braced against the mouldering column and pulled herself onto the edge of the railing. From there it was a straight drop down, and she extended a leg gracefully over the abyss, like a tightrope walker about to make her debut. Powerful winds rushed around her, nearly knocking her off the ledge without her volition involved. It occurred to him that she hadn't made a single sound over the entire time she'd been here. No prayers, no tears, and even now, no cry of existential terror. So, then, she was just going to vanish from this world without a sound. He watched her hands tremble on the drenched iron ridges and waited for the moment they would let go.

He waited. And waited. It seemed like it was taking longer than a minute, but he knew that time behaved differently around death. It wasn't a static force like the humans thought. Over the course of his long existence he'd felt it bend and stretch, compress and contort, much like the tall evergreens being tossed around on the other side of the marsh. It didn't always move the way one thought it would, but it always kept its scheduled end. That, and only that, was what kept the world turning in order.

The silver-haired reaper was startled from his reverie as the girl's body finally dropped from the railing. But something was wrong, he realized in the seconds following. She had stepped off the railing, yes, but she hadn't stepped _forward._ She'd stepped backward and now she was sprawling gracelessly at his feet on the floor of the trestle, wild-eyed and still very much alive.

He stared down at her in utter confusion, noticing for the first time her pale, narrow face and the tufts of reddish-brown hair poking out of her displaced hood. This….was not right. Not correct. He fumbled for his pocketwatch and clicked it open to see the time was 12:57 pm. She ought to have perished exactly one minute ago.

Then at last, as he stared into the glass pane of his timepiece, he finally heard a sound break from her lips. It was a long, low-pitched keening, somewhere between a wail and a hysterical laugh. His eyes were drawn from the watch to her face as she sat up, moving her hands over the scraped edges of her elbows and continuing to make that low, guttural noise. She scrubbed at her eyes even though she wasn't crying, and finally curled up into a ball inside her coat as the keening gave way to rapid, heaving breaths. The storm quieted just enough for him to hear them.

He wasn't sure how long he stood over this huddled impossibility of a human, trying to fish something out of the well of his newly blank mind. This had never happened before. No, this could not have happened at all. There was no protocol for what to do in this situation. It wasn't in the manual. All he could think about was the rather banal concern of _what am I going to write on the list?_

A moment later, he snapped to attention and dove into the deepest pocket of his robes, sifting through old inkwells and quills to find his collections list. It was a heavy tome, but he was so accustomed to the weight that he hardly felt it. He skimmed furiously through the pages, a month or so of souls, each one marked with a terse red stamp labeling them 'complete.' His fingernail bit into the page he had dog-eared today, scanning down a row of collected souls to the place her profile had been just half an hour ago. There was nothing there now. No picture, no name, no information. Most importantly, no date of birth or death. Just an empty spot amidst a sea of dead and those to die.

The wind picked up again and howled around him in a torrent of battered raindrops. He didn't know what to do. He supposed he ought to report this, but to whom? There was no agency that handled matters involving humans who continued to live past their death date. There was no form to fill out for this type of incident. Occasionally a careless young reaper would fail to correctly sever a deceased soul from its corpse, which could cause problems, and there were cases of paperwork being incorrectly filed that led to mix-ups regarding which humans had died where….but something like this….

The tall reaper glanced downward and actually gasped in surprise for the first time in a century. The space at his feet where the girl had fallen was empty. At first he thought she too had simply vanished – and wouldn't that be the icing on the cake of this abnormal night? – but then he spotted her at the end of the trestle's juncture, loping slowly back the way she'd come. She was going home, as though nothing extraordinary had happened on her midnight walk. He fought back the sudden urge to call out to her, demand she come back here and die properly so he could finalize the collection of her soul. It wasn't as though she could hear him. Still, just before she disappeared up the road that led into town, she turned around and gazed back at the marsh that should have been her grave. Her hood was down this time, rain soaking bronze bushels of hair and dripping from her nose. He could barely see her eyes through the mist, but the light reflected off them gave him a feeling he couldn't name. Like a rabbit in the brush senses the eyes of the hawk, feels the air shiver as it dives. The feeling of being seen.


	2. Trace

His last few collections were completed with nothing unusual occurring, and he couldn't tell if he should feel relieved or even more discomfited. Standing over the body of his final collection for this shift, an old woman living alone in a worn little flat, Undertaker watched the spiraling loops of her cinematic record with disinterest. His mind was still back on that rain-soaked trestle, and he kept checking the empty space on his list which the girl should have occupied. It didn't make sense. The list came directly from the higher-ups in the grim reaper organization. It was not a document that could be altered or tampered with. The list was fate itself, infallible and exact. Like clockwork, it foretold the precise time, place, and circumstance of each human's demise, and those deaths always followed exactly as specified. The list could not be  _wrong._

Undertaker was pulled from his thoughts as the last few frames of the old woman's unremarkable life flashed before his eyes. The cinematic reels faded into the book he held open, and he carefully snipped off the final reel as it wound to an end. He waited until the greenish glow subsided before he scribbled in the margins:  _Died of lung deterioration related to emphysema. Additional remarks: None._  He stamped her record as complete and slid the heavy tome into his pocket. He didn't waste a moment in leaving the cramped, stale-smelling flat. Outside, he stood on the rusted balcony and stared up at the sky where the constellation Orion would be, if it wasn't currently covered in clouds. Then he closed his eyes and sighed, relaxing his body into the curvature of space around him. When he blinked them open again, he was standing on a narrow road under a steel-grey sky, facing toward a huge spire rising in the distance.

He began walking past the muted glass panes of buildings, not minding which road he took. In the Shinigami realm, all roads led to the all-important soul library. Around him moved a great swell of black-clad bodies, hurrying here and there with bespectacled eyes glued to their paperwork. They barely seemed to notice each other, and the streets were silent but for the clatter of heels on pavement. No rain poured from the grey sky – the Shinigami realm did not have 'weather' so much as one constant, overcast day. There was no sun, and no night. For as long as he had "lived" here, the sky above and the streets below had been the same lifeless color of grey. He had thought it would drive him mad, at first. That was about the only thing he remembered from his early days. Perhaps he  _was_  mad, and he just couldn't tell because everyone else was mad too.

He passed by the forensics division and smirked at the sight of all of those laboratory geeks milling about with noses stuck in textbooks. There were a few amusing fellows who worked in that building, pointdexter types who were always good for a laugh. He liked spending time with them just to see what sort of precocious things they would say. Right now, however, he was on a mission that was leading him right to the heart of this little world – the Grim Reaper Dispatch Headquarters and Soul Collection Library.

The female attendant behind the desk bowed as he entered, and the few other library patrons looked up and stared. He graced them with a passing half-smile as he made his way to a large row of polished wooden filing cabinets in the center of the room. This was the repository for all the recently deceased souls in the world. Here they were stored and reviewed by clerics to make sure their information matched that in their completed profiles on the collection list. If there had been any mistakes during collection, this was where more practiced eyes would catch them. He, of course, never made mistakes. He did, however, wish that he had paid a bit of mind to the young human's name when it had been on his list. He supposed it couldn't be helped – there had been nothing about her profile that had seemed in any way noteworthy. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually bothered to learn the name of someone on his collection list. Perhaps the last time he'd reaped the soul of someone famous, Queen Victoria or Winston Churchill….but those names wouldn't help him now. Since he couldn't look her up by name, he started with the general area of London where she ought to have died. Sliding open file drawers with practiced ease, he thumbed through all the records that had been collected around that place within the past day. There were a fair few, mostly old people, but he made sure he studied each face carefully, searching for bushy bronze hair and that slender, barely-freckled nose. None of the photos looked even remotely close to the face he'd seen on the trestle. He checked again to make sure, then, undeterred, began rummaging through the drawers to find all the deaths that had taken place tonight in England between the hours of 12:30 to 1:30 am. Once again, his search came up empty.

Undertaker decided to abandon the file drawers and venture further into the library to search the records of still-living humans. Once again, he was stymied by the fact that he didn't know his query's name. In the soul library, names were more than tags used to identify people. Names had power. They were inextricably tied to the records of their owners, and could be invoked to call up any document at a moment's notice. No matter how many other humans may have the same name, one could always find the correct records by simply speaking the name aloud under the soaring glass dome which covered the reception desk. It was usually that easy. However, Undertaker had to admit that he liked the idea of a challenge, something he needed to work for if he wanted the answer. It had been far too long since anything interesting had presented itself to him.

He started with the records of humans living in the northern area of London, and cross-referenced that with the approximate age the girl appeared to be, give or take about twenty years because with some humans you really couldn't tell. He supposed time passed as he bustled about the shelves inspecting each tome which met his criteria, but the sky remained grey and the library noiseless. He forgot to check his pocketwatch. At one point the young reference librarian came by and inquired in a tremulous voice if he needed any help. He dismissed her with a vague wave of his hand. Finally, when all the relevant records had been thoroughly perused, he sat down on a reclining sofa and leaned his head back to watch the concrete sky roll past. There were far too many variables still floating around in his mind. Suppose the girl didn't live in the area, but was merely visiting. Suppose she was much older or much younger than she physically appeared. Suppose she wasn't even a girl – he could have misjudged her gender from the brief glimpse he'd gotten of her face, although he thought it unlikely. But pursuing all these possibilities could take months of searching, and even he didn't have that much free time. The quickest way would be to return to the human world, find her again, and shadow her until he learned her name….

Undertaker stood with a frown and decided to walk the length of the library to clear his head. This much investment in a single human was definitely outside the responsibilities of his job as a dispatch reaper. The matter ought to be reported to the head of his department, whoever that was. (Humans weren't the only creatures whose names he didn't trouble himself to learn.) That person would then convey it to the higher-ups and they could resolve it as they saw fit. There was no way he could be considered at fault for something as unprecedented as this. But then….then the girl would be out of his hands, and someone else would decide what happened to her. And as strange as it seemed, he wasn't sure he wanted that.

The silver-haired reaper paused as a stone parapet intruded into his path. Glancing upward, he beheld a grandiose figure of stone wielding a long scythe, bespectacled eyes staring coldly down at him. The statue wore his face, but Undertaker had never quite been able to associate himself with its height. It loomed over him, evidence that he had achieved something rare and valuable in this dreary world – he had distinguished himself within the infinite ranks of grim reapers. Centuries of service, a prolific work ethic, meticulous collections, and a reputation for being cold-blooded enough to shear children's souls from their bodies without hesitation – all of that had made him a legend, a status which definitely had its benefits. He knew he could hand off the girl's case to the higher-ups with no trouble or risk of reprimand. He had done exactly as instructed when he went to collect her. And yet….

His hand slid into his pocket and gripped the binding of that heavy tome. Of all the reapers in this dull realm, the one who was supposed to harvest her soul was  _him._  She was his charge, not theirs. And if she refused to die as scheduled, it should be up to him to investigate how this impossible thing had happened. He lifted the list from his robes and flipped through to the page where her profile should have been. There was the same blank space, enticing him to find something to fill it. With a brusque nod, Undertaker replaced the list and strode toward the giant double doors. Yes, for now, this girl's existence was no one's concern but his. As he walked, a tiny smirk lifted the corners of his lips. This could be an interesting diversion. It might even turn out to amuse him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since we don't know much about the Shinigami realm, I'm just doing my own artistic take on it for story purposes.


	3. Seen

It had been several days since the incident, and Undertaker had been using any spare time he had off his shifts to trawl the more densely populated areas of London, scanning crowds for the face that was burned into his mind. Normally, a reaper could easily find the location of a living human by calling up their file from the library. But to look up a file he needed the name, which left him right back where he'd started. So he was going about this the old-fashioned way, meandering along the edges of rooftops and staring down into flocks of human figures as they milled about their daily lives. Just like a private eye in those old noir films. All he needed was a trench coat and a fedora. Undertaker smirked slightly, tapping his nails against his pocket watch. He was about to start his next shift, so he would have to suspend his detective work for now. Even so, if that girl was anywhere within this massive city, he would find her. He had time and patience on his side.

A few hours later, he stood at street level before the winding cinematic reels of a middle-aged man who had been struck by a lorry while jaywalking. It was not a pretty sight, and the responding police had already covered the body and begun to erect barriers and redirect traffic. Officers hurried around with strings of caution tape, their eyes gliding right past him as if he were part of the pavement. He wondered how much energy he would absorb from this man's life, and what he should use it for. At that moment, a bearded officer stepped directly through him and shivered as he began to direct pedestrian traffic around the barrier. A harassed-looking lady pushing a stroller planted herself directly in front of him. "How long will these emergency vehicles be here? My son's birthday party is in half an hour and the guests won't have anywhere to park."

The officer grunted as he waved her past. "Look lady, there's no rushing the EMTs and investigators. They need to examine the scene until they're satisfied, so please move along."

The lady huffed indignantly and strode away as a softer voice replaced hers. "Pardon me, sir, but will we be able to cross the street further up? We're trying to reach the fairgrounds….says Wordsworth."

"I'm sorry, says who?"

"Wordsworth."

"What in blazes-"

Undertaker finished his review of the man's abruptly-ended life and severed the final reel after the last scene. He scribbled down the cause of death and stamped 'complete' over his profile before glancing up at the ensuing conversation. He nearly dropped his collections list. Standing in front of the officer was a young man with strangely pale, luminescent skin and milk-colored hair. He was wearing an old-fashioned vest and carrying a bag of groceries, but it was the figure behind him which drew the reaper's notice. Bushy, windblown hair. That barely-freckled nose. Baggy sweatpants and a loosely-fitting shawl. And eyes which looked like shutters blown wide open, gazing transfixed at the scene before her. Eyes that glinted a familiar shade of iridescent green. Eyes that were looking right at him.

Undertaker stopped listening to everything around him as he stared back into those eyes that were the same color as his. He felt that strange, tingling sensation creeping up his spine again. It was a feeling he was used to in the Shinigami realm, but it struck him as entirely unfamiliar in the human one. The feeling of being watched.

"Here now, son, I think you'll want to move along. Your lady friend doesn't look so well. It can be traumatizing to see something like this when you aren't prepared for it."

It was only when the young man nodded and grasped at the sleeve of his female companion that she finally broke eye contact with the stunned reaper. He offered his arm and she gripped it tightly as they hurried away. Undertaker stood there, bemused, before coming to his senses and striding after them. He was much taller than most humans, so it was easy to keep them in sight as they navigated the crowd of re-routed pedestrians. After two blocks, they crossed the street and began angling toward the public area of London's main fairway. The crowds thinned and he was able to hear their voices, low and fluted against the background traffic.

"-really am okay, I think I'm just in shock after seeing something like that. He didn't even look before he stepped in front of the lorry."

"I know. It made my stomach turn….says Bronte. I don't think we're going to eat much after all, says Emily."

"At least Doll wasn't with us. She'd have nightmares for weeks."

"She wanted to come. She was worried about you. You were gone for a long time….says Goethe." The young man glanced carefully over at his bushy-haired companion, one hand fiddling with the buttons on his vest. Now that he was closer, Undertaker could see that his skin was smooth and faintly scaled, appearing almost reptilian. He thought there was a medical condition which caused that, but he couldn't remember its name.

The girl bit her lip, swiping a stray bit of hair behind her ear. "Yes, well, my mother….was particularly difficult to be with this time."

"Then maybe you shouldn't." The scale-skinned boy suggested lowly, guiding them down a path through a wooded area which led to a series of raised tents. "Not if it makes you this unhappy…..says Bronte."

"Will you do something for me?" the girl interjected suddenly, her shoulders tensing.

"Of course….says Wordsworth."

"Look behind us and tell me if there's anyone there."

The boy glanced backward, wide eyes scanning the bushes and clearings. Only a few feet away, Undertaker found himself pausing warily, staring at the girl's turned back.

"There no one," the boy reported quietly. "Why, did you see something?...says Emily."

"I'm not sure." The girl tugged her shawl more tightly around her shoulders, hefting the bag of groceries in her other hand. "I just felt….like someone was there." They continued walking, the girl keeping her eyes fixed pointedly ahead of her. Undertaker didn't know what to do but to keep following, unnaturally aware of his every footstep on the ground.


	4. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays, everyone! Here's another chapter for you! If you're feeling generous, leave me a review and I will put it under my muse's tree! :)

As the pair of humans stepped off the path and into a large clearing, a panoply of brightly-colored tents emerged from the woods, their tops raised almost as high as the trees surrounding them. Between the tents Undertaker could see numerous people milling about, talking or resting in the open. No one seemed to be in any real hurry, so he was able to leisurely follow the girl and her companion as they carried their grocery bags toward the center of the small tent city. They had almost reached a large, broad-sided tent when a high-pitched voice rang out behind them. "Hey, they're back! Snake! Char!"

The humans turned around as another form hurtled past Undertaker and collided with the girl, nearly causing her to drop her grocery bag. She staggered backward, huffing in surprise as the smaller figure attached to her waist beamed up at her. "'Bout time, too! You were gone so long I was startin' to think you'd been bopped in the head and forgot your way home!" Now Undertaker could see that the figure was that of a young teenager with russet-colored hair that draped low over one eye. She wore faded, baggy clothes as well, and a big smile graced her freckled face. "Ooooh, you went shopping? What'd you get? Did they have my favorite cereal?"

While the teenager practically dove into the shopping bag, there was a rustling behind the fabric of the nearest tent. The older girl turned as the curtain expelled a tall man with vivid orange hair and flamboyantly mismatched clothes. He grinned jovially as he strode right through Undertaker and clapped the boy on the shoulder. "Came back with all we sent ye for, eh? Good lad. And ye –" he pointed a brightly painted finger at the bronze-haired girl, "Ye ought to tell us when yer thinkin' to be gone for more'n two days. Gettin' a bit worried, we was!"

The girl averted her eyes and dropped her hand into her pocket. It emerged clutching a perfectly round orange, which she held out to the taller man. "Sorry, Joker."

The man attempted to look cross, but the effect was mostly comedic as he took the orange and spun it on his finger. "Aw, well, 'long as yer back now I s'pose there's no harm done. Still got a few days to the next show. Char, you an' Doll put the groceries away, then go rest in yer tent before dinner. Snake, you come with me, we just got a new shipment of mice for yer friends…."

The two males trotted off while the girls picked up the grocery bags and hustled into the broad-sided tent. Undertaker followed them in, and it turned out to be a kind of mess hall, with foldable tables in the back and a while kitchen setup in the front, complete with ovens, sinks, a refrigerator, and plenty of cupboards. He supposed these people must live here for a significant portion of the year. Was this a circus troupe, then? That explained the tents and gaudy costumes, and the red-haired man had mentioned something about a show…. He wondered what role the girl played in the performance. It had been a long time since he had seen a circus. He recalled he used to go quite often when the Ringling Brothers toured around England at the start of the 20th century. Lions and tigers and all that. Many reapers didn't bother with what they considered "mortal frivolities," but it wasn't like the Shinigami realm had anything better to offer. As an amusement, humans had potential. In the past, Undertaker had often entertained himself by slinking unseen through their world and observing what spectacles they made of their lives. He wondered when he had begun to lose interest in even these brief diversions.

Lost in thought, he didn't notice when the girls finished placing the groceries inside an array of cupboards and left the tent. Only when he heard the canvas flap shut did he glance up and meander out after them. They were headed toward a double row of smaller tents, beyond which he could see the glimmer of a thousand city lights as afternoon began to sink into evening. They strode past open flaps of canvas inside which he could see people relaxing in bunk beds or hammocks, reading on chairs, talking around tables, painting at easels. This seemed to be the living area for the troupe members. The smaller girl bobbed her head happily as she waved to everyone they passed. "I hear we're havin' fish and chips tonight! Good thing you came back when you did. I'd have saved you some, anyway." She glanced up at her silent companion, who had her arms folded tightly and her head down. "Char, is somethin' wrong? You been quieter than usual so far." She frowned, her face clouding over with sudden unease. "Anythin' happen when you went to visit your mum?"

The bronze-haired girl stopped in front of a crimson tent speckled with purple and gold stars. She brushed her fingers through her wild hair and fixed her eyes on the dark interior of the tent. "Doll, do me a favor? Look behind us and tell me if you see anyone….unusual."

The smaller girl turned and glanced around with a gaze that passed through him like the wind. "Well….there's lots of people behind us, and we're all circus folk, so…."

"Yes, I know we're all a bit unusual here," the girl called Char interrupted. The ghost of an affectionate smile briefly swept her face before she turned serious again. "What I mean is, do you see anyone you've never seen before?"

Doll turned around again and pushed her bangs aside to cast a careful gaze over the background. The part of her face that had been covered by her hair was marred by a thick burn scar, gnarling her skin into an angry red weal. But neither of her eyes settled on him as they peered about. "We know everyone I can see, Char. What - " The girl cut short and seized her companion's arm excitedly. "Oooooh, is it a ghost you're spottin'? Where is it? How come you don't wanna look?"

The older girl sighed and stepped into her tent, flipping a switch that ignited a string of fairy lights wound around the poles. "It's fine, Doll. I just thought I saw someone I didn't recognize."

"Okaaaayyy…." Clearly not convinced, the other girl released her arm and gaze her a quizzical stare. "Joker said to rest till dinner, but I can stay with you if you like?"

"It's alright, I'll be fine. Just gonna lie down for a bit. Here, go and give Beast these clasps I got to replace the ones on her costume that broke." The girl handed her friend a little case from her pocket. "I'll see you at dinner."

"Don't be late, y'know it's always a madhouse when cook rings the bell!" Doll backed out of the tent and waved cheerfully before skipping off down the row. Undertaker was left staring at the fluttering shawl around the girl – Char's – shoulders. For a long moment, she did not move at all. Then she edged toward the dresser with tiny steps and unwound the shawl from her body. The reaper moved to follow, sure that she must have some documents with her full name on them around here. The second he stepped through the doorway, she froze again, like a winter hare trying to camouflage in the snow. Her reaction made him freeze as well, uncomfortably aware of the space he occupied. It was impossible –  _wasn't it?_  – but the idea that she knew he was there made something strange rise up from the depths of his consciousness. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to see if he could feel her, solid underneath his hand. As if in a trance, he reached for her bare shoulder. He felt his fingers settle over warm flesh, felt the hardness of bone underneath.  _This is real._

At first she didn't react, and he wondered if she couldn't feel him. Then, almost against her will, her head turned like a jerky marionette and her eyes were dragged downward to stare at their point of contact. Her breath came out in barely-there whispers and he realized her hands were shaking. The shawl fluttered from her fingers. As it hit the floor she whirled around, finally looking up at him with those vivid green eyes. He knew in that moment, and it felt like a jolt of electricity tearing through his body. He knew that she could see him.

A low, shaky sound spilled from her throat as she arched her neck to take in his full height. He could see himself reflected in her pupils, a massive specter towering far above, an eclipse across the light of her sun. They stared at each other and he felt his mind spinning on the spot, failing to come up with a logical course of action. He could not get past this moment. The girl breathed in and out and faintly found her voice. "….Wow. Oh, wow."

What on earth did that mean? Undertaker blinked, confounded by her intense gaze. She swept her eyes over his form again and uttered softly, "You….you are death….right?"

"You can see me." The words escaped his lips before his mind could catch them.

She nodded, leaning backward on the corner of her dresser.

"You can hear me."

Another nod. The silence stretched on, spiraling around them. Then she whispered, "Is it time now?"

"What?" He searched her eyes for some kind of mortal terror and found none.

She spread her arms out in a quiet gesture of acceptance. "You've come for me, right….? Mister Death?"

And for the first time in his entire existence, he didn't know how to answer.


	5. Encounter

"You've come for me, right….? Mister Death?"

For the first time in his entire existence, he didn't know how to answer. Undertaker stared down at the slender girl, who gazed back at him with unreadable green eyes. The silence stretched out between them until she broke it once again. "How….how does it work? Should I close my eyes?"

"Hm," he managed to utter unintelligibly, still trying to grasp the reality of the situation. He had roamed the earth for ages, yet speaking with a human being was something he had never anticipated. There was no script in his mind for this conversation. Clearing his throat, he gestured to a nearby set of chairs. "No need, although you may want to sit down. You look….rather peaked."

The girl touched her colorless cheek and edged toward the chairs, collapsing on the nearest one with a heavy thump. She never took those wide, bright eyes off him.

"Now then," Undertaker adjusted the collar of his robes, trying to adopt an air of authority. "I need you to answer me as honestly as is possible. Do you have any idea why you are currently alive?"

"What?" The girl's lips turned down in a confused frown. "Um, I, I thought that's why you came here. Aren't you going to….?" She made a slashing motion with her hand. "Isn't that why you've been following me?"

Undertaker shook his head. "It isn't quite that simple. I am here about your death, but you're not meant to die today. You were supposed to perish four days ago."

"I was?" If possible, those limpid eyes got bigger. "Was it….that night on the railroad trestle?"

"Yes. Cranial trauma, approximately 12:56 am. I was there to collect your soul."

"I knew it," she breathed ardently. "I saw you. When I looked back, you were standing right where I had been."

"Yes, well, the fact that you can see me is…. Let's just say it's not supposed to happen." Undertaker tapped a finger against his chin thoughtfully. "Then again, neither is a human living past their death date. Yet here we are."

"So, what you're saying is, you're…. _not_  going to kill me right now?"

Undertaker started to correct her, then decided it could wait. "No, I'm not. You're not on my collections list anymore, though I have no idea why. That's what I came here to find out."

"Oh. Well, all right, then." The girl took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, seemingly trying to regain her composure. She closed her eyes and sat silent for a moment, just breathing. Then she opened them again and gestured to the chair across from her. "Um, are you able to sit down? It hurts my neck to look so far up at you."

"I….can," the reaper replied uneasily, sliding down into the chair. It didn't take much spectral energy to make himself corporeal enough to interact with simple objects. "So, then – that night on the railroad trestle. You were supposed to jump off and die. Why didn't you jump?"

The girl pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "I….I had planned to jump. I really thought I was going to, right until the last moment. But then….I thought of Doll."

"Doll?" Undertaker recalled the russet-haired teen who had been so excited to see her friend return.

"She looks up to me, y'know? Thinks I've got the world figured out because of what I see. And it's not that I care so much about upholding that image – I mean, she's gonna grow up too and then she'll realize that adults don't know what they're doing any more than kids do. It's just….I would never want her to end up in the place I ended up that night. And if I throw myself into that nothingness, what kind of example does that set for her?" It wasn't until the girl's voice quavered at the end that he noticed a tear sliding down her cheek.

"So you decided not to die," Undertaker leaned forward intently, thinking that this must somehow be at the crux of all these strange events. "That's why you stepped backward off the ledge."

"I mean, yeah." The girl gazed at her feet intently. "I thought that I might….try again. And then you showed up today and I figured it must be fate. Everybody knows you can't escape death when your time has come."

"That's the way it's always been." Undertaker sighed, staring at her downcast face. "The problem is, your death was on the list and since you failed to die, all your information seems to….no longer exist. And yet  _you_  are still here."

"Can't you just update the list and say there's been some changes?"

Undertaker almost laughed at the innocent tone in which she suggested this. "No, no, the list cannot be altered. It tells the fate of every single human in this world, including the day and time they are to leave it. The list is the infallible text by which all grim reapers abide."

"But it can't be infallible because-" she stopped in the middle of her argument, sitting up straighter. "Wait a minute, you said all grim reapers abide…. So there's more than one of you?"

"Good Lord, of course there are more!" Undertaker couldn't help but crack a smile at the astonished expression on her face. "Can you imagine if it was just me running around, trying to reap every single human who drops dead? Do you know how many of you there are nowadays? There'd be a queue from here to the moon!"

The girl raised her eyebrow and frowned. "Okay, yeah, but you're like a spirit, right….? I thought you were supposed to have special powers that make you omnipresent, or at least able to move around really fast. Like how Santa Claus delivers presents to all the houses in the world in just one night."

This time Undertaker couldn't help it – he really did laugh, surprising himself at how good that sound felt rolling inside his chest. He closed his eyes for a moment to enjoy it, then opened them again, snickering. "Hate to break it to you, sweetie, but there's not much overlap between Santa Claus and grim reapers. We don't really operate on the same wavelength."

"I  _know_  that," the young woman huffed, her face gaining a pinkish tinge. "I just, I mean, I thought it was the same general idea. Omnipresence, you know?"

"Not even reapers are omnipresent," Undertaker admitted, still chuckling. "That's why we have shifts and – oh  _god dammit._ "

The girl shrank back in her chair as he leapt to his feet and seized his pocketwatch. His next collection was across town at 6:23 pm. It was 6:20 right now. He could make it, but it would have been disastrous if he'd been distracted for even a few minutes longer. He'd been so intent on finding this human that he'd forgotten he was even working. "I need to go," he announced, pulling the list out of his pocket and rifling through to the correct page. "I have to collect another mortal's records."

The girl stood, turning pale again. "Really? Right now? You're going to-"

"Where can I find you again?" he interrupted, stepping toward the canvas doorway. "This matter is far from finished."

"Um – here. We're always here."

"All right, then. Don't tell anyone." Undertaker smirked and gave a noncommittal shrug. "Or tell everyone, I don't care. Humans can never bring themselves to conceive of us." Then with a sweeping bow, he backed out of the tent and promptly vanished into the dusky evening air.


	6. Gladness

_Today I was visited by a grim reaper with silver hair who told me I ought to have died four days ago._  Char was still processing this information as she scraped her last piece of fish along the edges of her plate in the crowded mess hall. It sounded like the opening line to a bizarre writing prompt, the kind they gave to schoolchildren to test their expressive abilities.  _Write what happens next,_  the instructions would have said. Usually she was good at this kind of thing, but this one was currently leaving her at a loss.

His hand on her shoulder had felt so real. His voice in her ear had sounded like a man's voice, clear and present in the air between them. And he had seemed just as surprised by this as she was.

It could be all in her mind, her more rational side argued. She had been through hell on her most recent visit home and the stress could be causing her to crack. Perhaps this was her mind's way of dealing with the fact that she had almost thrown herself off a ledge the other day, by manifesting a  _grim reaper_  to force her to confront her suicidal ideation. But nothing like this had ever happened before during all the years she had struggled with this part of herself. She was not in the habit of spontaneously inventing characters to embody her issues, and she didn't see why she should start now. Perhaps she ought to –

"Ey, Char! Are you listenin'?"

Caught off-guard, she turned her surprised face toward Doll, who was seated on the other side of the table and had long since finished her food. "Sorry, what?"

" _Practice_  tomorrow morning, that's what. Eight-thirty sharp, don't be late! We've only got the arena for one hour before Peter an' Wendy take over."

"Ah, right. I'll be there." Char smiled at her friend before glancing down as a strange slithering sensation prickled her skin. A corn snake with orange-patterned scales and pink eyes was winding itself up her arm, flicking its tongue rapidly. "Oh, hello, Goethe."

"Goethe says you have a funny scent about you," supplied a quiet voice from the chair beside her. Snake leaned toward his pet and gently stroked its scales. Another of his snakes, Oscar, was hanging loosely from his neck like a bright green scarf.

"Funny how?" she questioned, patting Goethe on the head familiarly.

Snake tapped his finger softly against the table. "Like the scent of a stranger, says Goethe."

Char stared at the corn snake. "I can't think of why that would –"

"Oooooh, maybe it's the ghost!" Doll chirped enthusiastically, waving her fork around in random circles.

"Ghost?" chimed in an alarmed voice. Char looked to her other side to see Dagger paused in the middle of balancing his dinner knife on its sharp edge. The painted rims around his eyes made them look even wider. "Blimey, don't tell me we've got  _another_  ghost hangin' 'round! Took us months to get shot of the last one-"

"Dagger, they're just joking," another voice rang out as Beast leaned into the conversation, her curly black tresses falling on either side of her downturned lips. "Right? Doll, Char?"

"Search me, I dunno." Doll shrugged, flopping back in her seat. "I didn't see nothin', but Char was actin' mighty strange when she came back from the store today –"

"Not anyone we  _knew,_  is it?" Dagger demanded, rounding on Char, who was stuck for ideas on how to derail this conversation.

"That could mean anything –"

"I noticed it as well –"

"But it doesn't have to be a –"

"Guys, chill!" Char interrupted forcefully, shoving her hands in her pockets to conceal her nervously curled fingers. "It's not a ghost."

"See, I told you –"

"Then what is it?"

"Am I not allowed to be strange just for the sake of being strange?" Char demanded, refusing to look anyone in the eye. "That's part of my selling point, right?"

Beast blew out her breath from between two perfectly rounded lips. "Sure it is, but you don't have to be strange around  _us._  We all know each other's peculiarities."

Char allowed half her mouth to curve upward. "Maybe I was just practicing for the crowds."

"Chaaaaaaarrrrrr," Doll groaned dramatically, swooning in fake exasperation.

"So you're  _sure_  it's not a ghost?" Dagger prodded, still looking concerned as he cast his eyes about the common area. Doll slowly leaned toward him and blew a puff of breath into his ear. Dagger yelped and jumped so hard the whole table rattled.

"All right, you barmy lot o' miscreants, settle down!" called a loud voice at the center of the tent. All of the tables quieted as the colorful figure of Joker hoisted himself up onto a small platform built around the central pole. He stood there for a moment, surveying the crowded mess hall with a cheerful grin. "I 'ope you're all well fed an' watered, so let's give a rousin' thanks to cook fer a proper English meal!"

A roar of appreciation pierced the canvas roof, punctuated by the banging of plates and stomping of boots. Joker took his time waiting for the noise to die down before silencing the crowd with a single wave of his hand. "Now that we're 'alfway through the week, I wanted to give you lot an update on 'ow we're doin', big-picture style. Publicity is up, thanks to that lovely article run in the papers last month. Ticket sales are rollin' along smooth-like, so expect to perform fer a full 'ouse this Saturday." Joker paused as another round of lively cheering commenced. "In other news, the weather's lookin' cold but clear, I found my favorite bow tie in the laundry, an' that peacock that keeps tryin' to kill us all 'as finally settled down in the menagerie. Things are lookin' up, lads an' lasses! Keep up the 'ard work an' we'll all 'ave another successful show!"

Joker twirled playfully around the pole and leapt down from the platform amid a wave of laughter. Char watched him admiringly as he sat down at the nearest table and struck up a conversation with its occupants. Joker was charisma personified, all style and dazzle and genuine good cheer. He was the perfect ringmaster for their ragtag group of society's cast-offs. He always spoke of their troupe as if it were the only place any sane person would want to be.  _Noah's Ark Circus, 'ome of the best an' brightest! You belong with us, my girl, an' we'll be glad to 'ave you._  As the tent began to empty out, Char stood and collected her dishes amid the warm chatter of her friends. She was glad, she realized as she joined the queue spilling out onto the starlit fairgrounds. No matter how much pain she had to go through to get here, she was glad she hadn't missed this.

**Author's Note:**

> I realize it might seem like Undertaker is OOC in this story, and the reason for that is in this AU he is still a member of the grim reaper dispatch division and is going about his "life" and doing his job with efficiency and indifference. That's how it starts out, anyway. Crazy Undertaker is fun, but I thought it would be even more interesting to give some in-story development to this character.


End file.
